When do you need a contract for writing work? Always. Even if you’re writing a blog post for a friend’s company, or a guest blog post, or a magazine but are not getting paid, you need some sort of agreement.

This can be embarrassing to ask for, and quite frankly I do find it embarrassing if I’ve known and trusted the person for years. But you do need to make sure you are on common ground.

For example — and this is by no means legal advice, just a few suggestions — what are the answers to the following questions?

1. Will you be named as the author?

2. What’s the deadline?

3. What if I meet the brief but you change your mind?

4. Will they be able to change the article without your permission?

5. Will you be able to publish the same article elsewhere?

6. Will you be paid?

7. Will I be paid if you decide not to use the article after all?

I’m a plain language sort of guy, so when I’ve been asked to write some articles for someone I know, or anyone who doesn’t already have a contract for this sort of thing, I draft a one side “agreement” and send it to the Society of Authors for their opinion. They make suggestions, I amend it, send it to the company or person concerned, and so far they have always been happy to sign.

When I’m offered a contract, I always send it to the Society of Authors for their evaluation. I’m not a legal expert, and even if you are, is your expertise in copyright law and related areas? If not, what may appear to be innocuous wording could have devastating consequences.

To take a case in point, if you are offered a book contract which says all rights in the work revert to you if the book goes out of print, you might think that sounds fair enough. But these days books never go out of print because there is always the digital version. So a contract like that probably means that the rights will never revert to you.

And if a publisher were to say to you, “Oh, but we never enforce such and such a clause”, the obvious question to ask would be: “Then why include it?”. Another question to ask is: “What if your company gets taken over?”

There’s a good article about evaluating contracts. It’s American, but has some useful general points I think.

I also think, though I have no objective proof, that insisting on some kind of formal Agreement marks you as a professional. If other people want to write without regard to their rights or reputation, let them. The true professional enters into a contract so that both parties have a clear idea of what’s expected of them.

See also the series called 10 attributes of professional writers.